More and more often, Wi-Fi networks are being used in mission critical applications, such as administration of exams at educational institutions, health monitoring at hospitals, and the like. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi networks are subject to various network problems including outages and downtime, lack of responsiveness, log-in problems, and various errors.
Service level agreements (SLAs) are contractual agreements between a network service provider (e.g., ISP) and customers. Failure to meet terms of the SLA can result in error reports and customer dissatisfaction, particularly with mission critical applications. There can also be contractual consequences for provider side non-compliance of SLA terms.
One difficulty with evaluating SLA compliance issues is that SLA inherently concerns the client's experience at a station. Because the stations are independent of the station, there is not directly feedback line as insight. Network problems are thus discovered after being reported by a user. Some solutions download an application to a station for feedback, but this adds to the start-up burden of joining a network and some users or software may be hesitant about downloading malicious software. Further, many regular uses may use different devices (e.g., smart phone, tablet, and laptop) at different times, and each would need individual customization.
Therefore, what is needed is a robust technique easily to monitor wireless station experience on a Wi-Fi network by the network without cooperation from stations.